Wednesday, April 9, 2008

A few weeks ago Abby asked me if I prefer lace or cables. That question has stuck with me a bit. I'm actually doing both with Mystic Light (shown on last entry) which is a lace shawl with a cable top edge and a braid down the middle.

I failed to resist temptation and started Magic Carpet Ride from Sunflower Designs. I've absolutely fallen in love with the texture - one side is smooth and the other heavily textured. I've taken some ehh photos to try to show what I mean.

This is the right side. The beads look set into windows formed by the knit, purl on the wrong side rows. The texture is smooth but attractive.

The next photo shows the same view but without flash so it looks very green. The knitting in all photos is on very white 25 lb ink jet paper - which appears blue even though it's not. I think the photo shows the "windows" a bit more.

The beads do look more inset in this photo. By the way the yarn is Whisper laceweight merino in Tupelo Honey colorway from Woolen Rabbit. The link takes you to Kim's photo of the yarn and shows the coloring so much better than my photos. The color shifts are so subtle and so real if you have ever seen the Tupelo Honey. Tupelo is a type of gum tree that is native to the south. In addition to a wonderful flavor in honey, the wood was used to make bread bowls. Those are oval bowls used to knead bread years ago. I had one that went walkabout when I moved to TN.

Back to topic. Here's the photo I took of the 'wrong' side. The texture is heavy and the beads are more pronounced.I'm going to be using this scalloped ribbing when I start Moroccan Days sometime in the future. I decided the loopy beaded fringe on that is a bit much of a temptation to the cat, and since I'm basically a klutz, a sure thing for a disaster.So I believe what I love about the knitting is the textures available through the combination of stitches and, in this case, beads. I love Aran patterns, the cables, the lattice, even the bobbles.

Color work such as Fair Isle, intarsia and such is also interesting, being so much a visual person much of my life. Wendy of wendyknits.net is currently working on a sweater originally designed as a fair isle style. She's using Kauni yarn and started the skeins in 2 places. The results are amazing! Check out her photos but look quickly - this lady knits with blazing needle speed.

I'm going to tempt fate now and do the next row on Magic Carpet. The tempting is that PK is out and wound up. The row is beaded. Nuff said.